Rich Man's War (11 page)

All Necessary Measures

“The Kingdom of Hashem suffers from one of the classic pitfalls of monarchy: three capable heirs, two of whom have no lack of ambition. Though all seven systems of the kingdom remain nominally under the king’s control, no one expects the peace to last. Earlier flare-ups between the king’s sons in the wake of the pirate raid on Qal’at Khalil seem to have been the prelude to greater conflicts. Peace overtures on the part of the King, the Union Assembly, the Lai Wa Corporation and Prince Khalil himself have all failed to achieve any sort of reconciliation.”

  --“Medieval Problems in a Modern State,” Union Relations Monthly, April 2276

A large, bright holographic screen winked to life in front of Kelly’s chair with an unmistakable beep of urgency. Other screens disappeared in keeping with the protocol she’d set up for it. Kelly sat up in her chair, immediately dropping her conversation with Tanner as she read quickly. “Oh, shit,” she breathed. While still reading, Kelly waved a hand at Tanner. “Sound battle stations and haul ass for Scheherazade. Go!”

Though the sudden appearance of the message took Tanner by surprise, he didn’t blink at the captain’s instructions. With the course to
Scheherazade pre-set, all he had to do was press two buttons. Alarms on the bridge sat next to each chair on old-fashioned metal toggle switches. Tanner threw the red one for battle stations and then called up the helm controls. He also hit the intercom. “Engineering, we are maximum acceleration for Scheherazade,” he warned while alarms blared throughout the ship.

He fought the urge to throw on his helmet the instant he heard the sound. The captain gave him instructions and her tone made plain that every second counted. He’d get his chance to don his helmet as soon as his hands weren’t busy with other things.

“Understood,” came the response. “We’re not at a cold start, but it’s gonna take us a minute to get up to full speed.”

Tanner double-checked all of the contacts within the two-minute bubble.
Nothing seemed to have changed. Tanner saw no inbound invasion or other cause for alarm. The Archangel Independent Shipping Guild’s liner lay closer to Scheherazade than
Joan of Arc
, but only by a matter of light seconds. The corvette would soon overtake her.

“ETA to
Scheherazade approximately sixteen minutes,” Tanner announced. He looked to his side. Kelly already had her fingers flying over the controls at her station.

“Adjust course to bring us closer to
Argent
on the way,” she instructed without looking at him. “She’ll be moving in the same direction if she isn’t already. Let’s shave a couple seconds off the comms lag between us.”

“Aye
aye, ma’am,” Tanner acknowledged, keying in the proper commands. He felt a brief hum run through the ship as the engines climbed toward maximum sublight power. His eyes flicked up to the astrogation feed once more to watch Kelly’s prediction hold true.
Argent
turned directly toward Scheherazade and got moving.

Tanner bit back a
ll of his questions. Training took over. The captain called for battle stations and gave a course; at a time like that, one simply shut up and followed orders. He knew enough about
Joan of Arc’s
mission and conditions in the Kingdom of Hashem to put together some ugly expectations.

Less than twenty seconds after sounding battle stations, Tanner snatched up his helmet from the hook on the side of his chair. He glanced over to the captain and realized she hadn’t picked up hers yet, either. He thought about saying something.

Stop it
, he told himself.
Nobody’s in range to shoot at us yet. She knows what she’s doing.

Not for the first time, his eyes glanced down to her leg. No bloodstripes had appeared on her suit in the three weeks since setting out from Archangel, nor on anyone else’s. Concerns for rank and age and greater experience evaporated as he considered one unwelcome thought:
Nobody here has ever seen combat except me.

Tanner saw the battle stations readouts on the control panel light up as the crew arrived at their posts. Kelly activated the electrostatic reinforcement of the hull, strengthening the ship’s armor at a molecular level
. Stevens, by contrast, had utterly failed to activate the ES system before
St. Jude’s
demise. Armored plating slid up over the bridge canopy, completely blocking the view though high-resolution projections inside the compartment created a near-perfect illusion of transparency. Chaff missiles stood at the ready. Missiles and guns came online. Kelly wasn’t flying into anything blindly.

The captain is solid. So is the crew. We’ll get through this.

“
ASG Argent
, this is
ANS Joan of Arc,
” Kelly said, her fingers on the transmit key. “We are inbound for Scheherazade at emergency speed and see you doing the same. Please confirm.”

The hatch at the rear of the bridge opened up as the XO and both ops specialists stepped inside with their helmets already on. Stan turned to the astrogation table. Chief Romita came up to stand beside Tanner’s chair, while Booker moved to join Kelly.

“We’re on a course for—” Tanner began to explain to his relief, but the chief ops specialist held his hand up to silence him as the captain began speaking, both to them and to the rest of the crew through their helmet comm network.

“
People, we just got an urgent message from the consulate planetside,” she explained. “They say solid intel has the planet getting hit any minute now, and our consulate is a direct target for ground forces. We are in full emergency evac, and—” She cut herself off when a light on her control panel winked on.

“
ANS Joan of Arc
, this is
ASG Argent
. We confirm emergency course for Scheherazade. Message from planetside received. Please advise.”

Kelly keyed up her response. “
Argent, Joan of Arc
. We’re closing to within live comms range. Please put your captain on.” Then she called up one of the overhead maps of the consulate and its vicinity. Several possible landing sites had been highlighted in blue during earlier planning sessions. Given the densely urbanized nature of the area, none of those landing sites were closer to the consulate than two kilometers. Even the broadest streets were too cluttered with concrete dividers and such to accommodate the corvette.

“We’ll do a flyover, try to figure out what route is safest for our people and land accordingly. If the consulate is under fire when we get there, we’ll strafe and engage, but if we wind up making a target out of the ship, it’s gonna put
Argent
and
St. Patrick
in a bad spot, too.”

“Why the hell would they hit the consulate?” Romita wondered.

Kelly shook her head. “Message doesn’t say.”

“Have we heard from
St. Patrick
?” asked Booker, glancing to Tanner. “Are they still on the other side of the planet from us?”

“Far as we know, sir,” Tanner nodded, gesturing to a tactical display. Information at that distance was at least three minutes old.

“We’ve all been sitting as close as we’re allowed,” shrugged Chief Romita. “We all knew something was fishy when they wouldn’t let two little ships like ours stay close together for more than a couple hours at a time. Probably so somebody could arrange this exact problem.”

“Yeah, and we may only be minutes ahead of their timeta
ble,” nodded Kelly. “We’ll have to hope
St. Patrick
can make her pick-ups on the other side of the planet as planned.”

“How solid is this intel?” Booker asked.

Kelly pointed to the priority message screen still visible at her station. She turned to another matter. “Are they getting back to me this week?” she muttered, looking at her comms channel with
Argent
.

“Multiple course changes in our light bubble, ma’am,” announced Tanner, still in the middle of handing his duties off to the chief. “Several ships now inbound for
Scheherazade. Outbound ships are picking up speed.”

“Did we send out any warnings?”
asked Booker. “Or did the consulate? Any comms from those other ships to us?”

“No, sir,” Tanner shook his head.

Stan took in the changes displayed on the astrogation table and quickly figured things out. “They probably saw us tearing toward the planet and put two and two together.”

“Should we talk to them?”
Booker considered.

“We’re here to look after our own, and the
intel didn’t say anything about anyone else’s consulates being hit,” said Kelly. “If I had more, I might’ve shared, but as it stands we’re giving away enough by moving like we are. Goddammit, we’re almost in live comms range with
Argent
now. Where’s—there,” she grumbled, keying up the comms panel again.

“
Joan of Arc
, this is First Officer Hawkins on
Argent
,” said the helmeted man appearing on a new screen. Unlike Archangel Navy helmets with their metal faceplates and separate eye lenses, Hawkins wore a model with a fully transparent facial visor. “I imagine you got the same message we got?”

“Seems likely,” said Kelly. “Where’s your captain? We need to confer.”

Seconds passed before Hawkins could answer because of the time lag. “Captain’s busy, Lieutenant. I’ll relay. Right now we’re planning to set down at the spaceport to pick up the bulk of our people per the original plan. If the consulate is a target, I don’t think we can land anywhere close enough to be of assistance, anyway.”

Tanner watched Kelly’s face as she looked away and consulted her map. No one would’ve missed the tension in her voice, but he suspected she was still the calmest person on the bridge.

“Good call,” said Kelly, “that’s what I would advise, too. Stick with the original priorities. You worry about the bulk of our civilians, we’ll focus on the consulate. Until and unless you receive contrary orders from the consul or from
St. Patrick
, our initial protocols hold. That includes rules of engagement. Send out a scream signal the instant you come under fire.”

“We’ve got it under control,
Joan of Arc
,” nodded Hawkins. “Comms will remain open on this channel.
Argent
out.” The screen shifted to the soft green static of standby mode.

Kelly looked over her shoulder at the senior ops specialist. “You catch that, chief?”

The older man merely nodded. “I’m sticking with my first guess, ma’am,” nodded Chief Romita. “That guy’s gotta be Archangel Intelligence. Maybe he was Navy once upon a time, but not anymore.”

Tanner watched the exchange curiously. Two weeks ago,
after
Joan of Arc
met up with
Argent
and
St. Patrick
for a command conference, Kelly, Booker and Chief Romita returned with some concern they would not voice in front of the crew. Circumstances now sent that sense of discretion out the airlock. With Romita fully in control at the helm, Tanner called up the file on
Argent
at his station and took another look at the ship.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen the liner before, or one like it.

“Nothing we can do about that now,” grumbled Kelly. “I can’t imagine they’d put an inexperienced captain on a ship like that. We’ll have to have faith that he isn’t an idiot. Pretty sure our original plans will fall apart as soon as we hit the planet.”

“That’s the way of these things, ma’am,” nodded the chief. “All we can do is improvise.”

* * *

Status reports and other announcements flew across
Argent’s
bridge. Internal sensors displayed full readiness throughout the ship, with defensive systems online and all compartments sealed. The general quarters alarm cut out once the captain was satisfied… with the condition of the ship, at least.

Everyone on the crew had served on other vessels, though those experiences varied wildly. Several were veterans of the Archangel Navy, or the
Union Fleet, or civilian vessels. Almost half the crew came from outside the system, signing on for a two-year cruise under strict, isolated conditions for the promise of citizenship and a clean slate. A few of the Archangel natives signed on in search of amnesty for past crimes. They were screened and hired by the Intelligence Service: a band of has-beens, second chancers and refugees with vital skills.

The ship’s doctor
had lost his medical license ten years ago over ethical matters.
Argent’s
chief engineer, who once held the same position on the Union Fleet battleship
Fletcher
, was two years past mandatory retirement age, divorced, childless and desperate for the only job he ever loved. The head astrogator was an alcoholic. Adultery scandals had derailed the Union Fleet career of the duty helmsman. And Casey had no idea how many of his crew were undercover agents of the Intelligence Service.